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It's Never a Bicycle Accident

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Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#131

Post by aembleton »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
conradludgate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been teaching my girlfriend how to cycle in London recently. I've told her that she needs to stand her ground, and not cycle so close to the pavement. It's scary though. I've told her for now that if she sees a bus, to stop and let it go ahead because they can be so dangerous

Cycling close to the pavement is super dangerous because if your pedal so much as touches the kerbstones on the downstroke you'll get thrown into traffic. I've seen more than one kid fall in the way of oncoming traffic like that, fortunately without anybody getting hurt but still, it can happen in a fraction of a second.

You're also more likely to ride into glass and other debris that gets pushed to the edge of the road.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#132

Post by DanBC »

prower wrote: post #95
AYBABTME wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're downvoted, I do similar exactly because otherwise cars pass me by a mere few centimetres. If I'm in the middle of the lane, they can't unless they're really set on pushing me off, and then at least I have a buffer of space to my right that I can verve into. If you stick to the side of the road, you make it the default decision for people (many of which I'm sure might not if they knew better) to pa…

Drivers hate cyclists because they're slow, dangerous, usually don't follow rules of the road (regarding stops, traffic lights, right of way, one-way streets) and they can die, or be badly injured, as soon as they get in contact with anything at all for a microsecond. Cycling in the city is scary because going with a bike in the traffic is straight-up insanity.

"slow" very much depends on the city. In lots of places (eg, London) cyclists easily keep up with the speed of traffic.

No-one should break the rules or the law. I'm curious why you think cyclists are more likely to do so. It's easy to find many examples of drivers breaking both. https://www.youtube.com/user/CyclingMikey

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#133

Post by DanBC »

prower wrote: post #110
sneak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone pointed out downthread, there are no "cyclists", just other people who, at that time, are on bikes. Hating someone and unnecessarily acting in ways that might cause their death because they are moving slowly due to being on a bike is, to put it mildly, psychotic.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

There's a sense of ownership in your posts -- the roads are for cars, and everyone else gets to use them with your permission.

But that's cobblers, isn't it? The roads are there for everyone. People get to use them because they're members of our society and following the law, not because they happen to use one particular type of vehicle.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#134

Post by DanBC »

sneak wrote: post #112
prower wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

> That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that you could run over the iker AT ANY TIME because bikes are NOT reliable when roads are not 100% correctly maintained. Going slower isn't unsafe, it's safer. You're confusing inconvenience…

> You're confusing inconvenience for lack of safety. Going slower and driving as if the vehicle in front of you may stop at any time is safe, responsible driving.

Yes. And this doesn't just take into account cyclists, it also takes into account car doors suddenly opening or pedestrians suddenly walking into the road.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#135

Post by aembleton »

prower wrote: post #110
sneak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone pointed out downthread, there are no "cyclists", just other people who, at that time, are on bikes. Hating someone and unnecessarily acting in ways that might cause their death because they are moving slowly due to being on a bike is, to put it mildly, psychotic.

Going on the street without paying attention to all signs, rules and potential dangers is NEVER OK. That's paramount (for everyone on the road) and I'm not questioning that for a second. That said, bikes are dangerous for everyone involved. If you encounter a bike you slow down all traffic (because you can't overtake safely, and that's difficult on busy roads), you have to keep distance and account to the fact that y…

> I know I sound like an asshole but if drivers hate cyclists, and pedestrians hate cyclists, and motorbikers hate cyclists, and public transport drivers hate cyclists, and truck drivers hate cyclists, and politicians hate cyclists..

Because cyclists need their own dedicated cycleways which at least in the UK there aren't many of. Cyclists are going too slow for motorised vehicles and too fast for pedestrians.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#136

Post by albertgoeswoof »

DanBC wrote: post #132
prower wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers hate cyclists because they're slow, dangerous, usually don't follow rules of the road (regarding stops, traffic lights, right of way, one-way streets) and they can die, or be badly injured, as soon as they get in contact with anything at all for a microsecond. Cycling in the city is scary because going with a bike in the traffic is straight-up insanity.

"slow" very much depends on the city. In lots of places (eg, London) cyclists easily keep up with the speed of traffic. No-one should break the rules or the law. I'm curious why you think cyclists are more likely to do so. It's easy to find many examples of drivers breaking both. https://www.youtube.com/user/CyclingMikey

> No-one should break the rules or the law.

I actually disagree with this. You should not break the spirit of the law, and as citizens we have the moral responsibility to ensure we challenge the law where it is inappropriate or misguided by breaking it. The law is fallible and laws change over time, they often put in place for reasons that no longer apply (or are completely false premises in the first place). A great example is jaywalking - which if enforced is completely ridiculous.

Regarding cycling, the highway code wasn't really written for cycling safety. Some red lights are actually safer for a cyclist to jump, it's often safer to mount the pavement and cycle in places - sometimes there's badly designed cycle lanes that end in the middle of nowhere with no option to cycle safely, one-way streets and low traffic areas can force rule abiding cyclists down unsafe busy roads etc. etc.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#137

Post by pharmakom »

numlock86 wrote: post #89

A lot of comments point out situations with car drivers not being considerate of cyclists. Not to defend car drivers, but you could interchange car drivers with cyclists and cyclists with pedestrians and you would end up with people giving the same anecdotes. You see cyclists speeding through "walk only" areas just as you see cars ignoring bike lanes or giving space to cyclists in general. You'll see just as much peo…

The number of pedestrians harmed by people riding bikes is minuscule. They would be reduced further if there were safe cycle infrastructure so that people weren’t so scared that they ride on the pavement. Pedestrians and people on bikes are both victims of our car dominated culture. Consider that more pedestrians are killed by motorists mounting sidewalks each year than are killed by cyclists.

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#138

Post by aembleton »

WalterBright wrote: post #69
nielsole wrote: post #56

Other phrases (at least in german media): "cyclist injures _himself_ badly" "The cyclist wore no helmet" (as if that changes fault in an accident) The car "couldn't stop in time" (e.g. for a red light before hitting a cyclist/pedestrian in the intersection) When the cyclist is struck at night the car driver sometimes is quoted with the claim the bike had no lights. While sometimes that may be right, the car driver ob…

> the light is often damaged in the accident You can tell if the light was on when it was damaged, by examining the filament. They do this in airplane accident investigations to see which panel lamps were on when it crashed. This doesn't work for LED lights, though. Just incandescent.

Do any cyclists still use incandescent bulbs?

Re: It's Never a Bicycle Accident

#140

Post by throwaway0a5e »

caslon wrote: post #70
clairity wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “...I would love it if reckless drivers would lose their license at the first offense.” that’s too punitive, but i’d be quite happy with a quickly escalating, income-/wealth-adjusted fine. so like 0.01% of yearly income on first offense, 0.1% on second offense, 1% on third offense, or something like that, on a rolling 12-month basis, where you can voluntarily give up you license for 3 months to reset the scale of y…

How is it too punitive? They're operating a massive structure of (usually literally) flaming steel. If they can't consider the safety of people who very plausibly will be their victims without constant vigilance, they really shouldn't be driving. Doubly so for pickups, which are now so large that they offer a near-nonexistent risk on the driver's end for poor driving and nearly-certain serious-injury-and-or-death for…

>How is it too punitive?

Because huge numbers of people need to drive to be productive members of society and anyone without their head in the sand knows that "normal traffic flow" is routinely in violation of the letter of the law, often to the point of being criminal (usually at the officer's discretion). That brings us to selective enforcement. And we all know who gets the shaft when everyone is breaking the law and we have to choose who it gets enforced against.

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